


starlight symphony

by Anonymous



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 21:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11632626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Silence, shadows, and two strangers on their way to nowhere.





	starlight symphony

 

They call him the Fairy, but that’s not really accurate.

Instead, Otabek thinks that he looks like an avenging angel, hell-bent on some sort of reprisal, tearing up the ice like that. There’s something in his eyes which alarms Otabek: a kind of hunger and desperation that Otabek impulsively associates with a hunted animal. His arms hit that pitch of fluid grace that Otabek has never been able to master, but he also looks like he’s trying to escape from something. Maybe running from monsters inside his mind. He’s been here for longer than Otabek cares to remember; he’d stomped into the floodlit rink long after everyone else had left for the night. Otabek suspects that his coach doesn’t even know he’s here. Like everybody sane in Barcelona, Yakov Feltsman is probably sound asleep at this hour.

Yuri Plisetsky of Russia skates like he has something to prove.

The Russian coaches don’t tend to prescribe full run-throughs of their skaters’ programs, but Yuri repeats his two routines methodically in the whirring, mechanical silence. Furthermore, he remains exquisitely in character throughout. By glancing only at Yuri’s bird-like wrists at the snatches of moments between his own elements, Otabek can recognise the subdued reverence of Agape and the fierce intensity of the Allegro Appassionato.

They are alone in the rink, but Yuri doesn’t acknowledge Otabek. It’s not surprising; his bratty attitude is well-known and Otabek would bet that Yuri doesn’t remember that training camp. Yuri does, however, take care to give Otabek a wide berth on the ice. 

Otabek doesn’t mind. Better that than the forced camaraderie that might be forced onto him by other skaters. 

After all, Otabek didn’t come to the Grand Prix Final to make friends.

Otabek is most of the way through the step sequence of his short program when the lights of the stadium suddenly flicker off with discordant ticking sounds. For a long moment, he’s enveloped in disorienting darkness. Then, with more dissonant noises, the neon lights intermittently turn back on.

A little bit concerning for the stadium to be experiencing electrical faults this close to the competition, Otabek thinks. Nearly done with the step sequence, now. If this was the real thing, he’d be heading into the triple axel...

As if on cue, the ominous ticks begin again and the lights start to dim.

Just before the stadium is plunged into blackness, Otabek senses movement at the corner of his eye. A lithe, black-clothed figure heading backwards straight at him, blond hair flying. Otabek tries to twist to the side to avoid Yuri’s trajectory. He’s still moving; he hits the boards with speed.

Maybe the lights finally give out, or maybe he blacks out himself. Later, he wouldn’t know what came first.

He can’t remember hitting the ice.

When he finally becomes aware of his surroundings, Yuri Plisetsky’s face is confusingly close. He’s staring at him.

“Otabek Altin,” he says, pronouncing each syllable carefully, as though they are a strange-flavoured sweet in his mouth. Otabek thinks that his name sounds odd in Yuri’s voice. His seaglass-green eyes are wide and luminous in the eerie, low light from — with effort, Otabek turns his head to look — the emergency generator-powered lamps.

“How long was I out for?” he asks, moving to push himself up. His right wrist immediately bursts with pain and Yuri’s arms shoot out to gingerly support his back before he collapses back on the ice. Like this, Yuri manoeuvres him until he’s sitting up. Otabek shifts to lean back onto the boards, murmuring a quick ‘thanks’.

“Only a few minutes. Sorry about that, the lights made me disoriented. I didn’t mean to skate into you,” Yuri is saying. His voice lacks his usual rancour; he sounds uncharacteristically exhausted. He’s holding a roll of bandage. “You’ve probably sprained your wrist. Hold it on the ice for a bit and then I’ll do it up for you.”

Yuri is efficient about it. His fingers are cool and he doesn’t pause at Otabek’s quick inhalations of pain. Otabek watches as his hand and lower arm is fastidiously covered up by the elastic material. When Yuri sits back, Otabek flexes his fingers experimentally.

“Thanks. You’re good at this,” he says in slight surprise, but Yuri isn’t looking at him. He’s staring disconsolately at the emergency lamps.

“I finally sneak out after a whole day of Yakov and Lilia nagging me to fucking relax,” Yuri sneers half-heartedly under his breath, “and even the fucking rink is against me. What the fuck. Fuck this.”

With an unpleasant shock, Otabek is suddenly reminded of Yuri’s actual age. He had seemed older when he was wrapping up Otabek’s wrist, and his skating has always held a maturity which belied his years.

“You snuck out from your hotel room in the middle of the night,” Otabek says flatly.

“Well, I didn’t _sneak out_ in the _middle_ of the night.” Yuri turns his glare on him. “I left after I got back from dinner. More like evening. Then I hung around for a bit and came here. Anyway, I’m going to fucking beat JJ and Katsudon but I need to practise to do that, right?”

Otabek hums non-committally. He’s never seen the fire of Yuri’s eyes so close before; usually it’s from the impersonal distance of a livestream during a competition. Or maybe some YouTube videos of a few of Yuri’s particularly charming programs from his junior days that Otabek likes to rewatch sometimes.

It’s easy to separate the skater from the person. It’s harder to realise that they are the same; that within the glittery trappings of their program character is a real human being, with their own hopes and dreams and ideas. Skaters throw a little of themselves out to the audience’s mercy, every time they perform. Their skating tells more secrets than interviews and autobiographies ever will. Particularly with someone who loses themselves on the ice as much as Yuri does.

“We should get out of here,” Otabek says finally. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

*

Otabek realises that something is wrong as soon as they step outside. Somehow, it’s darker than usual. The wind is howling, but it’s otherwise quiet. Slowly, he realises that there are no cars moving on the road. No faraway sounds of engines or horns, even though the Ronda Litoral freeway is nearby. It’s a bizarre silence.

Otabek imagines that he can even hear the ocean in the distance.

He realises that none of the streetlamps are shining. The traffic lights are not responsive. Only the cool moonlight is allowing them to see the shadowy shapes in the street.  The stars glitter above, cold and untouchable.

He looks over at Yuri. Yuri’s eyes are oddly attentive and his back is ramrod straight. Almost in response to Otabek’s gaze, Yuri glances at him wordlessly. The cold wind pushes at their backs, urging them forward.

They come across the first crashed car almost immediately.

It had wrapped itself around a tree and the bonnet is a mess of twisted metal. The windscreen is shattered. Through the gaping windows, Otabek can see that there are people inside. They don’t look dead. Just… in an oddly peaceful sleep.

“Are they…” Yuri trails off. His voice seems unnaturally loud. He walks forward, but holds onto Otabek’s sleeve, dragging him behind. Otabek unlocks his phone, intending to call the emergency services. Yuri reaches a hand into the window and touches the lady passenger’s wrist.

“She’s alive.” Yuri’s voice is hushed. “But her heartbeat’s really slow. Haven’t you gotten through to the ambulance yet?”

“There’s no signal,” Otabek says, frowning. “I’m trying again, but I don’t know…”

He doesn’t get through; no one’s picking up.

“Hey, Otabek…”

Otabek looks up. Yuri’s looking into the distance; there’s a log-like shape on the footpath, outlined against the darkness.

“Is that a person?” Otabek mutters.

Yuri stands up suddenly, hand still gripped onto the material of Otabek’s sleeve. Otabek would have followed him without question, anyway. The strangeness of this night is really getting to him.

They make their way to the figure; with the torch on Yuri’s phone, they can see that it’s two men, both smartly dressed. Again, they look like they’re asleep, slumped on each other on the footpath. They don’t appear to have any injuries. Otabek grips the shoulder of one of them, and shakes it.

“Hey, wake up,” he says in English, without hope. The man doesn’t.

Yuri’s phone can’t get reception, either.

They see another car crash in the distance and find it in almost the same circumstances as the first. The lone occupant of the car — the driver — is clearly breathing and surprisingly only a little bruised, but otherwise unresponsive.

When they get to the hotel, it’s pitch black, like its surroundings. The automatic door at the front entrance won’t open.

“I guess we can’t call them, either,” Yuri says pointlessly.

“What’s going on?” Otabek asks, just as pointlessly.

Yuri is silent. Otabek feels his fingers clench onto Otabek’s jumper even harder.

“They all look asleep, but are unresponsive.” Otabek speaks out loud to calm himself. “Even the people in the cars. So what if, at some point when we were in the rink, they all fell asleep. The people who were driving cars couldn’t control them so they crashed. And they fell asleep because…” Otabek stops.

He begins again. “There’s no signs of electricity, there’s no mobile phone reception…”

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Yuri suddenly screams. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ echoes through the air, warped and carried away by the wind. Yuri’s hand starts shaking. His breaths are coming quicker. Otabek grabs his wrist.

“Hey, calm down,” he says quietly. “We’ll be fine. There’s just been a mistake, that’s all. It’ll be fine in the morning.”

Yuri’s arm is stiff. It feels brittle, like Otabek could snap it as easily as a long-dead twig. Yuri’s dragging in breaths slowly and deliberately now; in and out, in and out.

The odd familiarity with which Otabek grabbed Yuri’s wrist is quickly fading. Now it feels abnormal and incongruous, holding onto someone whom he’s built up a ghost of in his mind. And maybe watching Yuri’s competitions and interviews through the years makes Otabek think that he knows him already. But he doesn’t really know the person behind the skater, not really.

He lets go.

“Is it war? The Russian government didn’t give out any travel warnings for Spain,” Yuri says. His voice sounds calm and controlled, but Otabek can hear the faint tremor beneath, the slight upturning of the last word.

“We can’t assume anything,” Otabek says. His voice is hollow.

Yuri fiddles with his phone. “No internet, either.”

The wind whistles through the leaves of the trees.

“Alright, let’s move on then,” Yuri says briskly. He grabs onto Otabek’s left hand and Otabek jumps in surprise. As efficiently as he had bandaged Otabek’s wrist, Yuri slides their fingers together.

His hand doesn’t feel fragile, like Otabek would expect from its appearance. It feels comfortable, and safe. It makes Otabek feel somewhat grounded in this strange reality.

“Come on.” Yuri tugs on his hand.

They walk through the lifeless streets of eastern Barcelona as the wind moans its song.

Otabek skated to Saint-Saën’s Danse Macabre once. It was a concoction of disturbing melodies and eldritch tones that his coach had chosen and which he never ended up growing fond of. He remembered struggling with that program. He disliked the violin with the scordatura tuning, which drew uncomfortable tingles from his back if he listened to it too closely. Its haunting theme runs through Otabek’s head now, over and over and over.

“Avinguda Diagonal,” Yuri reads out. “That’s a popular road, right?”

It’s deserted, with its distance interspersed with vehicles in various states of damage, as well as the occasional collapsed figure on the footpaths. Yuri no longer makes a move to approach them and Otabek follows his lead. Yuri’s blond hair is particularly striking in the moonlight. It’s the only thing which stands out in this inky gloom and in some moments, Otabek itches to reach out and touch it.

He notices the young girl on the footpath because she has the same golden blonde hair that Yuri does. Then he sees the dark streaks through her beautiful curls, the dark patches soaked through her shredded winter coat, the pooled puddles on the concrete. Her limbs are at odd angles, splayed like those of a rag doll thrown by a resentful child.

Otabek stops.

Yuri pauses too, looking back at him.

“She’s…”

Yuri snaps his head to where Otabek’s looking. The scene is at odds with the nostalgic beauty of the stars overhead, the cold ink of the sky, the wisps of silver-grey clouds seeping forward into the distance.

“Don’t go closer. There’s nothing you can do.”

Otabek ignores Yuri. He takes a step forward, intending to— to what, exactly?

In any case, Yuri doesn’t budge. He’s stronger than he looks. He holds his ground without visible effort and when Otabek ceases to resist, he pulls him down the avenue again.

“We have to keep going, Otabek.”

Otabek supposes that Yuri’s looking for other signs of life. They haven’t even seen so much as an alley cat yet.

At some point, they’ve started walking closer and closer together. Then suddenly, the next time Otabek is aware of such things, Yuri’s arm is around his waist and his own arm is wound against Yuri’s shoulder. Yuri doesn’t provide much in terms of warmth, but it’s reassuring to be constantly reminded of the presence of another person.

The stars seem to shine brighter in the dark sky. Otabek supposes that it makes sense, with the lack of light pollution. He wishes that he bothered to learn about the constellations sometime. It would have been nice to be able to point them out. Maybe even use them for the compass points. He’s never been to Barcelona before.

‘ _Can you tell me what’s going on?_ ’ Otabek wants to ask them.

If he completely blanked out what had happened in the last hours, with someone by his side like this — under the glinting scattering of the stars, the pearl-like moon, in a foreign European city on a December night — it would seem to be a completely different sort of night. People like to immortalise such moments. They’d write novels, poems, symphonies.

Not a danse macabre, Otabek thinks with dark amusement, but a starlight symphony, perhaps.

He guesses that Yuri’s becoming tired from his slower steps. His head rests against Otabek’s shoulder, but still he keeps going on.

“We can take a break,” Otabek says gently.

“Wha—?” Yuri’s head jolts up. “No. There has to be someone else about. Why would we be the only ones awake?”

“Don’t worry about it now. You’ll be collapsing on your feet too if you go on like this.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s all right, Yuri. I’ll keep watch, if it’ll make you feel safer.”

Yuri stares at him for so long that it makes Otabek feel uncomfortable.

“What? Just say it.”

“You called me Yuri.”

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Otabek doesn’t understand.

Yuri blinks. “It’s just. How did you know?”

“You knew my name, didn’t you?”

Yuri scowls, but there’s no real power behind it. “Whatever. Just. Everyone kept on calling me ‘Yurio’ and I was so fucking shit tired of it. That’s not my name, you know.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean, I don’t mind the Japanese skating fans calling me that or whatever. Gotta separate me from their precious Katsudon-who-is-going-to-be-crushed-miserably, I get that. But I’ve known Victor for five fucking years. And when someone makes up that stupid nickname? He’s the first to get on it. Not my fault that his Piggy has kind of the same name as I do, is it?”

“No,” Otabek’s mouth says before his mind catches up with Yuri’s sudden loquaciousness. He doubts that Yuri heard it, anyway.

“And now that we’re talking about that, what a fucking dysfunctional relationship that is. He skips off to Japan because Katsudon got drunk and rubbed off on him once. Well good job for Katsudon, I could name twenty skaters off the top of my head who would kill for Victor as a coach. I’m so sorry that they didn’t know that the only qualification was to get blackout drunk and pole dance. Anyway, I was jealous too you know? I didn’t want to lose Victor to someone else. But I guess I’m glad that I lost that shitty Hot Springs on Ice thing because Victor is a shitty ass coach and arrogant as fuck. As least Yakov kicks my ass effectively.”

“You must be really tired,” Otabek says.

“Yeah, fuck, I must be, if I’m saying this shit,” Yuri says. “Okay, just let me nod off for a bit and then we can swap.”

Yuri directs them to an inset entrance to a building off a side road. Here, they’re shielded from the wind on almost three sides. It’s more bearable. It’s certainly been nowhere near as cold as the most brutal Russian winters, though.

Yuri drops to the ground in one of the two inner corners. “Wake me in half an hour,” he demands. He stares at Otabek when Otabek follows his motion. Their upper arms are touching, not that Otabek can feel Yuri’s body heat from the layers of clothing under the sports jacket he’s wearing.

“You’re going to get even colder when you fall asleep,” Otabek says.

He doesn’t think that Yuri’s listening. His eyelashes have drooped and the curve of his shoulders suddenly screams of vulnerability. He’s never looked so young before. The rest of the time, his relative youth is covered up with his combative nature and the world-weary steeliness inevitably built up in the character of top elite athletes. Otabek wonders about Yuri’s personal life. No parents to speak of, a grandfather in Moscow. He has to have friends, right? Does he like it in his St. Petersburg sports school, or is it all cutthroat competition and each-student-to-their-own?

Yuri’s slumped over — similar to the figures in the street, Otabek realises with an unpleasant shock. For a terrible moment, he imagines that Yuri won’t wake up, that he’s the only one cognizant of this nightmare. Or maybe he’s the one going crazy. Maybe the stress finally got to him, maybe it was something he ate earlier. Maybe he’ll wake up and his coach will be telling him off for oversleeping.

Here’s the thing: he knows that he never worries about waking when he’s dreaming, even when he’s vaguely aware that it’s all in his mind. He either wakes up, or he doesn’t.

He tries to arrange Yuri into a comfortable position but finally resorts to pulling Yuri onto his lap and wrapping his own arms around him, before pulling a jacket over his body like a blanket. He winces silently when he accidentally jars his probably-sprained wrist. Yuri’s disturbingly light, even though Otabek knows that his slim frame hides the muscle that he’s painstakingly developed in the near-torturous training regimes through the years. It’s odd to be holding someone like this. Otabek feels like he could break him easily. Yuri’s hair tickles his face.

It’s soothing, feeling the rise and fall of Yuri’s chest, the warm puffs of air from his mouth. Sometimes he shifts in his sleep.

He doesn’t wake Yuri when thirty minutes pass. When it’s been an hour, he considers it, but ultimately decides in the negative. He doesn’t mind staying like this for a while longer. There’s an odd, novel feeling which rises somewhere in Otabek’s chest.

It’ll be daybreak in a couple of hours.

Otabek feels — rather than sees — Yuri wake up. If it isn’t for the sudden tensing of his frame, Otabek would still be staring into the distance. The Agbar Tower can be seen from here, a giant phallic shape rising into the darkness. Otabek had been thinking that he would be amused by its nicknames.

In any case, Yuri seizes up suddenly, and his eyes silently flick open. They flit around, quickly cataloguing his situation, before he turns them to Otabek. They’re large and cat-like. Otabek stares back.

“Good morning,” Otabek says finally. He had intended it to be an ironic statement, but it comes out sounding blank.

“‘Morning,” Yuri mutters, voice hoarse from disuse. He coughs twice. Then he picks up his phone and grimaces at the time, although he doesn’t say anything. Instead, “You should sleep,” is what he says. He makes a move to extricate himself.

“Stay,” Otabek says blandly. “It’s going to be cold if you move now.”

Otabek falls asleep to the sound of Yuri’s breaths, listening for them carefully over the billowing of the wind. His last thought is that the wind is blowing in a westerly direction, if he’s not wrong. Blowing from the sea, into the land.

He wakes up just as the skies are lightening.

Yuri’s watching him.

“It’s morning now,” Yuri says. “You said it’ll be better in the morning, didn’t you?”

Otabek’s noticed that Yuri has a tendency to cling to words. Perhaps words offer him a certain sense of comfort, in times of uncertainty. It’s an interesting characteristic for someone who’s led a life like Yuri has. Like Yuri chasing Victor Nikiforov across continents to have a verbal promise upheld.

And for what? Victor Nikiforov never ended up actually choreographing a program especially for Yuri, did he? As far as Otabek could tell, Victor merely gave Yuri one of his unused programs and then blanked him after that strange Hot Springs on Ice saga. Any further choreographic direction and refinements that he could have given Yuri would have been limited, with Victor choosing to remain in Japan. Despite his legendary status, certainly not a choreographer that Otabek would have hired.

But this is an adult that Yuri had known for a third of his life.

And yet Yuri still remembers Otabek’s half-hearted words. Otabek finds this simultaneously charming and sad.

“Let’s go down this street instead,” Otabek says. “I think it leads to the ocean.”

They walk in silence, hands squirreled deep into the pockets of their outer jackets. The wind has quietened down somewhat, but gusts still blow through the trees from time to time. The street is lit in the odd, unnatural hue of twilight blue, caught in the liminal time between night and sunrise.

There are less slumped figures here. They only come across one after a decent distance. It’s a middle-aged lady, and her face is stark white. Her hands are cold to the touch, but Yuri finds a heartbeat in her neck.

“It’s really slow, like the others,” he says. “Still no reception?”

Otabek checks again. “Nope. No internet either.”

They make it to the ocean just as the sun breaks over the horizon of water. The wind is stronger here. They sit down on a ledge at the perimeter of the sand.

Otabek breaks the silence. “I’ve never watched the sun rise before,” he says. “It’s a little odd to be doing it now.”

Yuri glances at him for a moment and snorts indistinctly. After a while, when Otabek thinks that the one-sided conversation has already ended, Yuri says “Me neither.”

“It’s alright,” Otabek says, mostly for himself. Yuri doesn’t seem to need the reassurance. “It’s hardly the end of the world.”

“Do you mean that literally or figuratively?” More snark is creeping back into Yuri’s voice. Otabek likes that. The tired, washed-out Yuri from before was a little unsettling, but. But — Otabek thinks that he could get used to him, too.

“We passed a motorcycle dealership a while back. I can hotwire one and we can go anywhere we need.”

Yuri’s staring at him as though he’s grown a second head.

“You probably miss your Russian friends, but—” Otabek pauses, thinking carefully about how to phrase it “— I’m glad that you’re with me.”

He doesn’t look over at Yuri and Yuri doesn’t say anything. The sun is a brilliant gold, reflecting off the swathes of clouds hovering over the horizon. Funny, how sunrises and sunsets are always prettier with clouds in the sky. As though beauty is more striking with imperfections present. Like the bland impersonality of fresh ice, before successive blades carve out the skaters’ stories. Like a technically brilliant but automaton-like routine, juxtaposed against the emotion of a flawed, desperate performance.

“I don’t think that you’re an asshole,” Yuri finally says. It’s with evident difficulty, the words forced out of his mouth almost unwillingly.

“Well, thanks.” Otabek tries not to let his amusement creep into his voice.

“What I mean is—” Yuri clenches his fist in frustration. “I wouldn’t mind staying with you. For however long. So—”

Otabek reaches out and takes his hand. It’s cold, icicle-like. Tensed. Otabek turns it over and gently prises Yuri’s fingers open. His palm is reddened with crescent-shaped marks. Otabek draws his thumb over them, pressing against the skin.

“Let’s get away from here,” Otabek says.


End file.
